Video: Ruaridh Cunningham’s Winning Run at Hardline

 Well said mate, some serious riding was done

 I cant believe they were hitting the road gap in wind and rain on saturday. That was just practice! The top half of the course was closed on saturday due to the extreme weather. Most of the riders were just glad to get down in one piece in the post race interview haha. Serious props to everyone that rode

 In my mind it still takes some pretty huge balls just to GET to the step up!

 I think the results speak for themselves. They are some of the best to rip a bike so anyone else's opinion is pretty baseless. That trail looks gnarly enough even last year without the rain/wind and massive jumps. How the hell did they ride some of that off camber loose and rock slabs? Dan Atherton is one sick puppy... in a good way.

 @phattymatt there were drones and real cameras covering everything, but redbull have the rights on that, and their video will be out soon I expect.
As for the video clips you may have seen, they were filmed 'unofficially' and let's face it, the woods in Wales are very tight! Unlike the trails, Good angles are hard to get in Wales!

 I watch these runs with a lot of excitement because it pushes the sport in the right direction! I'm so tired of seeing DH courses with no airtime... Being in the air is part of the sport, and its something that should be represented in the races.

 seriously?!?

 I just kept tilting my head backward to get a better view down the trail. It was freaking crazy though.

 didnt gee get it on at rampage a few years? dude can ride better than u.

 Haha :-)

Here is a video of the floor 2ft in front of Ruaridh as he wins Hardline!

 Seriously, can't even watch that shit without getting dizzy. Who wants to watch 3ft in front of the front tire?

 Is it that hard to learn from McGazza?

 Started to get a headache but hung in there out of respect for 1st place.

 Maybe we've reached that already - nobody hit the massive step up as far as i know... Trouble is, the whole course looked like great fun!

 Agree. I live in Colorado where action sports are huge. More and more (young) kids are getting seriously hurt, as progression pushes them to go bigger and bigger. I can't image what they'll be doing in 10 years and as the father of a 3 year-old boy that makes me nervous.

 I agree. We've already reached a point that to be a competitive action athlete you need to train year round and probably have rich parents that can afford to send you to woodward or pay for coaching (not ALWAYS the case but usually). It's really hard to be competitive if you can't safely learn that caliber of tricks into a foam pit or resi-ramp. Hell growing up competitions and videos was just guys doing tailwhips, bar-spins, x-up etc. tricks that can be learned on dirt with some risk but NOT the risk of death in most cases. Jumps and tricks get bigger and more complex but the risk goes up as well! Travis Pastrana gets nightmares from his near death experiences I'm sure some of our mountain bike idols are reaching that point too, if they haven't already!

P.S. @MacRamsay the word is that the step up was avoided due to high winds. All the riders agreed it was much too dangerous.

 A short 23 years ago this was pro level.

youtu.be/KFxL8yQakrk

 People were always going huge but its a matter of personal accountability and hitting things within your ability level. I think we've all tested that limit with terrible results, haha. The riders themselves know their limits so their input will help shape the course if they continue to have it. Dan was hurt doing something anyone could get hurt doing regardless of the size, which is testing a jump that has never been done successfully or attempted before. It seems the most dangerous aspect of the course were the new jumps which can be changed with some tweaks but with bad weather, everything goes out the window (at least it seems to me from my armchair).

 to be fair, the guys in that video are shredding those old school bikes, shows how much new bikes will take as well as athlete progression I guess...

 @caste1200 You obviously didn't understand his post.

 The pics are sweeeet!

 There were bits where I could not figure out from track side how the fuck they rode it , I had to do a little interloping under the tape at lunch time to figure them out , fucking bonkers shit

 ^^^^ @bigburd exactly that! The bits people have seen involve air time, but they don't show the really brutal rock slabs and massive stumps just waiting to take a rider out!

 Aye, I agree. The boy has talent, coming from injury. Just needs the right team with riders. Think Scott, or Trek would be good for him.

 saw him at glentress the other week coaching I think. I think he could easily be on one of the big teams full time!

 made my neck hurt trying to see more of the track

 Especially the one going into the road gap!

 Too hardline

 Was far too windy

 Soaking wet and windy , we as spectators were only allowed half way up the hill and it was quite windy there in a fairly sheltered valley , uptop I bet it's horrible

 I'm sure a decent video will be coming along soon. Loads of videos on Youtube and you can see some very expensive professional Video cameras were there..

 We spoke too a camera man at the bottom,and he said to run cables from top too bottom would of been crazy money for this size event,so they put more cameras along the track with cameramen and will be doing a video as soon as its edited.

 Nope. I'm sure Dan will be back when he's recovered to hit it, even if it needs some tweaking

 I thought they did in practise after changing it a bit? Taylor vernon did didn't he?

 That was a different jump, nobody hit the step up as it was to dangerous

 I think we should call all bad POV footage, Go-Potato.

 Or just GoPo for simplicity.